Cette image peut avoir des imperfections car il s’agit d’une image historique ou de reportage.
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image which highlights some of the tectonic complexity evident in the Sulaiman Mountain Range of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Note that the combination of visible and near-infrared light used to make this false-color image causes vegetation to appear bright red. The false-color view also helps highlight some of the differences between rock types. While not as high as the Himalayas or Karakoram, the Sulaiman range boasts some of the most complex tectonic structures in the world. Millions of years ago, as the Indian tectonic plate moved northward, it began to rotate in a counter-clockwise direction, wrenching the northwestern part of the plate backwards into part of the Eurasian plate, and pushing into the Afghan block to the west, creating the Sulaiman range. The countervailing forces put the rocks of the Sulaiman range in a unique compressional vice, causing many of its faults to curve and stretch in convoluted ways, a process still continuing today.